


won't you breathe with me?

by SyntheticRevenge



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (if by comfort you mean weed), Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Body Horror, Drug Use, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29199804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticRevenge/pseuds/SyntheticRevenge
Summary: “You alright? You look rough.”Eric laughs at that, louder and shriller than he expected. “My wife’s pregnant,” falls out of his mouth, and he spasms with what must be laughter, silent and painful. He doubles over with it, trying to get air back in his lungs.“Congratulations,” Elias says, dryly, and Eric can’t help but let out a genuine, non-hysterical snort.(Eric copes. Elias helps.)
Relationships: Eric Delano & Original Elias Bouchard, Eric Delano/Mary Keay, Eric Delano/Original Elias Bouchard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	won't you breathe with me?

**Author's Note:**

> I have had onesided Elias/Eric brainworms for many months now but MAG193 sent me over the edge on my Elias feelings, unfortunately, so here we are. Hope you enjoy, welcome to my new extremely rarepair. Title from Born Under Punches by Talking Heads, which is superfluously referenced in this fic.
> 
> CW: lots of weed, suicidal ideation, referenced mild corruption-adjacent body horror

Eric storms out of a one-sided and pointless ‘argument’ with Gertrude to have his first cigarette since he met Mary, and the newish kid in Research is brazenly smoking a joint in broad daylight, pressed against the back wall of the building. 

“You have a light?” Eric asks, reaching blindly for the pocket he’s always kept his last packet of cigarettes in, just in case. He finds it and fumbles one between his lips even through the fit of shaking anxiety that’s overtaking him. 

The kid silently and sluggishly leans in to light his cigarette and then falls a step back into the wall. The joint’s burnt almost all the way down. Eric misses the days when he felt safe enough in his mind or, fuck, in general, to get that high. Never dream of doing it at work, though.

“Thanks,” Eric says, smoking furiously, trying to remember how nicotine used to calm him down. The magic seems to be gone, because his heart keeps racing, the thought he keeps trying to white out and speak in a made-up language so he doesn’t have to face it head on just yet just pinging back and forth at millions of miles an hour. He tries to take a deep breath, tilting his head back.

The kid watches him hazily. Eric sees him in his peripheral vision. 

“I’m Eric,” Eric says, raising a hand in greeting, and taking another desperate drag with the other.

“Elias,” Elias says, tongue audibly leaden. “You alright? You look rough.”

Eric laughs at that, louder and shriller than he expected. “My wife’s pregnant,” falls out of his mouth, and he spasms with what must be laughter, silent and painful. He doubles over with it, trying to get air back in his lungs.

“Congratulations,” Elias says, dryly, and Eric can’t help but let out a genuine, non-hysterical snort.

“Fuck.” Eric looks back up at the sky and watches his breath spiral above him. 

“I’m not someone you want advice from,” Elias says, dropping the spent joint to the pavement beneath them and stepping on it, sniffing and pushing a strand of hair back. “I tackle all my problems the same way.”

“And what’s that?” Eric asks, distractedly, brain still working overdrive asking itself deep and impenetrable questions with no definite answers. 

“What d’you think?” Elias asks, with a low, scratchy laugh that’s nearly charming. 

“What gets you this high on a Thursday morning?” Eric asks, hugging himself against the cold, finally turning to look at Elias, trying to distract himself from the inside of his mind.

“It would’ve been my b--my, uh, best friend’s twenty-fifth birthday today,” Elias says, scratching vigorously at the side of his face. “And I. Miss him. And I don’t know how else to deal with that. Or anything else.”

“Wow,” Eric says, blinking, surprised by the quantity of transparency from a stranger. If there’s one thing that appeals to him, it’s upfront honesty. He’s always felt there’s no sense wasting people’s time with pretense. “Yeah. Makes sense.” He pauses a moment, then, curious, asks. “How did he die?”

“I don’t know,” Elias says, shaking his head. 

“The kind of ‘don’t know’ that gets you a job at the Magnus Institute?” Eric asks.

“Yeah.” Elias lets out an airy, strangled laugh. “Exactly that kind.”

“I’m very familiar with that kind.”

“Yeah, well, you’re in the Archives, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, so?” Eric asks.

“You’re Wright’s fucking chosen people,” Elias says, shrugging. “The rest of us barely know anything.”

“In my defense, it’s not as if Wright or even Gertrude volunteer information,” Eric says. “My wife is the reason I know as much as I do.”

“Do you know of anyone named Jurgen Leitner?” Elias asks, training suddenly oddly-focused eyes on Eric. 

Eric can’t help but laugh again at that. He can picture how Mary would react to the question, the silent shock into raucous laughter. The  _ audacity _ of someone to ask her if she knew of her fucking folk hero.

But he’s not Mary, and he really should stop worrying about what she’d do so much. Even if he has to because she’s pregnant with his kid and he has an obligation to protect that kid from anything, including her. If he’d made a list of the cons of marrying Mary Keay, which he absolutely didn’t,  _ the likely future mother of your children is a murderer _ would’ve probably taken the top spot.

“Yeah,” Eric says, trying to shake the thought of her out.

“Is that all you’ll give me?” Elias asks, suddenly miles-high again. 

“Get me high enough I forget my own name and I’ll tell you more,” Eric says, rubbing his forehead. “Let me get my coat, I’ll meet you out front.”

“You don’t know me,” Elias says, blinking, obviously confused.

“I don’t know fucking  _ anything  _ and at this point I’d be happy for you to secretly be a murderer,” Eric says, laughing breathlessly. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay,” Elias says, shrugging and watching him walk back into the building. It’s more of a  _ stride _ , really, Elias thinks. His mind gets tangled in minutiae when he gets this high, like spelling ‘minutiae’ when it comes up in a thought, or like precisely describing someone’s gait. He thinks maybe he’d like to be a writer if he weren’t so high or doomed all the time.

He likes Eric. He’s seen him around, mostly keeping pace with Gertrude in the halls and speaking quietly and intensely, sometimes alone in Artifact Storage, sometimes napping in the stacks of the Library with his head against the sharp metal shelves. (Elias has also taken a nap or two in the stacks, if ‘napping’ as a term covers ‘getting so fucked up at work you need to find somewhere to ride it out’).

And, of course, there’s no forgetting the time Eric showed up to work beaten, stitched, and bandaged with no explanation. Elias had watched him on his lunch break, and either the cough syrup was fucking more with his mind than he thought, or there were blades of grass growing out of a small, exposed cut on Eric’s arm. Before he got up to leave, Eric had plucked the pieces of grass out of the cut by their bloody, tangled roots, and gently put them in his breast pocket, like they’d been living parts of him.

Elias couldn’t believe any part of what he’d just seen, but the tenderness towards the things growing out of Eric was what shocked him the most. To love something that  _ hurt _ you? Elias’s motivation or lack thereof and his  _ unsavory _ proclivities didn’t do a goddamned thing to his father, but his father never loved him all the same.

Elias thinks Eric might actually be a good father, based on this. 

He remembers what he’s supposed to be doing, through a syrup-thick and time dilating fog, and gets himself moving to the entrance of the building. It’s been a while since he’s had someone else in his flat. Boys and dealers. More the latter than the former, these days. He’s not sure what to do with Eric just inviting himself over, but what’s Elias going to do, say  _ no _ ? Eric’s pretty and Elias is lonely and maybe that’s all there is and needs to be to it.

Eric taps his shoulder and smiles, a bit distantly. Elias can almost taste the anxiety rolling off him. He gets all freaky-empathic when he’s fucked up these days, or maybe he just gets so high he hallucinates on a more regular basis. 

“Lead the way,” Eric says, and Elias nods a bit blankly at him, trying to remember which direction his building’s in.

“How long have you been married?” Elias asks, hands in his pockets, setting off down the street.

“Bit over two years,” Eric says. “I, uh. I’d prefer not to think about my wife, actually.”

“Yeah, sure,” Elias says, shrugging, and then the peak of his high hits him like he’s being dropped from the top of a mountain, and he has to expend all of his energy and focus for the rest of the walk on staying upright and semi-grounded in reality, and he blinks and he’s on his small, ragged couch, watching Eric take a ferocious bong rip and then stand up, wandering the length of Elias’s tiny flat like a caged animal.

He ends up at Elias’s pile of records and flicks through. Elias idly reaches for the bong, lights it, and pulls, unsure where this experience is going to go, but wanting a cushion of plausible deniability and partial amnesia and unreality to soften the landing. Eric gasps, softly, and pulls a record out. Elias hears it sliding out of the sleeve, and Eric drops the needle to--Talking Heads. “Born Under Punches”. Best--

“--opening track  _ ever _ ,” Eric’s saying, shaking his head and laughing as it slams on. “Good taste.” He sits down next to Elias again and motions for the bong, taking a series of long hits. “Fuck,” he breathes, along with a massive cloud of smoke. “I haven’t heard this in years. Haven’t gotten stoned in years either.”

“Good things to revisit, I hope,” Elias says, a bit flatly.

“Yeah, oh, definitely,” Eric says, snorting. “My wife’s ritual hallucinogens have their charms, but there’s nothing like good old fashioned marijuana.”

“Thought you didn’t want to talk about your wife.”

“I don’t.” Eric’s tone is cheery and amicable. “I don’t, but I can’t stop myself anyway. What  _ I  _ want’s never mattered. She wants this kid, we’re having it, whether that’s the best thing for it or not. I can’t say no, she’d kill me and it’d grow up alone with her, and…” Eric shrugs.

“Is she--does she--” Elias tries to ask, brow furrowing, looking for the appropriate question.

“I love her more than anything,” Eric says. “Should’ve added that.”

“What’s that like?” Elias asks.

“What?”

“Loving someone more than anything else.”

“So  _ fucking  _ lonely,” Eric says, with a charming smile, like it’s some inside joke heavily at his expense. 

“Then what’s the point?” Elias asks, shrugging and shaking his head. “Of--of  _ anything _ . If love doesn’t fix fucking anything, then why…”

“Why breathe?” Eric asks. Takes another hit. “Nothing we can help. It’s a reflex.”

“You said you’d tell me about Jurgen Leitner,” Elias says, something sliding and clicking into place in his mind for just a moment.

“Yeah. I did.” Eric sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can we do that when I’m less high? I owe you a better explanation than I can give right now.”

“Copy that.”

“Thanks for this,” Eric says, then coughs slightly. Weak lungs or embarrassment. Hard to say.

“Yeah, any time,” Elias says. He doesn’t ask about what killed Allan. He doesn’t ask about the eyes that haunt his dreams. He doesn’t even ask Eric about whatever left him with living, growing wounds. That’s why he loves weed so much. Being curious got him nowhere, and if he’s high, he’s satisfied with his own lack of knowledge. He can live with the persistent dark spot in his life. He figures he’s safer not filling it in.

He blinks piercing grey eyes into his vision and back out again.

“Do you ever feel like you’re sort of. Hurtling towards an ending?” Eric asks, vacantly. 

Elias hesitates a long moment before answering. “I think I might’ve already ended.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. All feedback is greatly appreciated!  
> Find me on tumblr @witnesstotheend and for the love of god talk to me about these men.


End file.
